The Anticipation Is Killing Me

Dead Island

If you are a fan of horror, video games or zombies (and if you're not, what are you doing here), you would have had to have been living under a rock these past couple of days to not have caught wind of the trailer debut for Techland's (for Microsoft Windows) Dead Island. Nearly overnight, the fanboy excitement went from zero to...well, a number that is really high. I actually think that it broke the buzz o'meter as all of the internet was seemingly rumbling at it's arrival. Truth: it's been a long time since your host was so overwhelmed by the undeniable coolness of a trailer that I completely forgot to keep hold of my trademark, healthy cynicism. Which, is exactly what happened 15 seconds into this thing. Yes, I am now one voice out of thousands voraciously feeding the hype machine, and you will be too once you've had your mind blown by Dead Island's stellar teaser trailer. Even though we've been told that the trailer's "footage and characters may not even represent the actual game". Which would be a bummer really if this teaser in no way exemplifies the tone, quality and emotional resonance of the finished product. I mean, when was the last time I got teared up from a video game trailer? Exactly.

What's even crazier, is that in the aftermath of the online hysteria following Dead Island's trailer debut, is that a film deal transpired. Yes already, not even a day afterwords (that's got to be some sort of record). Producer/Universal exec Sean Daniel (The Mummy, The Wolfman) scored the movie rights reports Hitflix: "Daniel recently established The Sean Daniel Company, and they're the ones who bought the rights to the game. Techland, the Polish developer for the game, has got to be dancing in the streets right now. This is a game that had been delayed and that had fallen off the radar after being announced a few years ago. As soon as that trailer, created by Axis Animation, popped up online, Dead Island went from 'troubled game that's taken forever to come out' to 'game everyone will play this fall because the awareness on it is gigantic."

I'm less thrilled about this news. I mean, hows about we see the actual game first? Call me a snob, but I belong to that camp of people that think movie adaptations of video games (not to mention board games and theme park rides for that matter, you know who you are) are the absolute bottom of the "creative" barrel (somebody convincingly justify the existence of films like Alone in the Dark, Doom and House of the Dead to me and maybe I'll change my tune). In the end, they are what they are and they certainly have their fans, but I imagine that like every other video game film adaptation, I'll simply opt to stay at home (though I do have my fingers crossed that they'll get it right this time, in regards to the upcoming Silent Hill 2 movie...see even I can't help myself sometimes).

Techland's Press Release:

Terror. Violence. Madness. Bedlam. A holiday paradise gone mad. A tropical island turns into total chaos after a mysterious zombie outbreak. Cut off from the rest of the world, the player’s only chance to survive is to fight to the death and find a way to escape from the island.

Deep Silver announced today that it will publish Dead Island, the upcoming gruesome zombie slasher by renowned developer Techland. Dead Island combines first-person action with a heavy focus on melee combat, character development and customization of a vast array of weapons. All of these gameplay features are presented in a dark story inspired by classic zombie movies with a gritty and engrossing campaign that can be played with up to four players in co-op mode.

Set in an open world tropical island, hordes of different festering zombies await players around every corner while they embark on a variety of thrilling missions through the holiday resort. With firearms and ammunition being scarce the player must rely on utilizing found items as weapons for self-defense and fight off zombie hordes in intense melee combat. A diverse range of items can be collected and will later serve to transform the player’s ordinary makeshift weapons into serious instruments of destruction.

In addition to satisfying even the most bloodthirsty action fan’s fantasy, Dead Island also features role-playing elements which allow the player to develop one of the game’s unique character classes according to their preferences, all the while learning new skills and fresh tactics during their journey through the perilous environments of the island. What’s more, anytime during a game up to four players can seamlessly join together and experience the intense combat and immersive story with cooperative gameplay.

With the all-new Chrome Engine 5 powering Dead Island, the game will use the latest installment of Techland’s acclaimed proprietary game engine, allowing the player to experience the tropical island paradise in graphical splendor with diverse environments like lush forests and detailed city environments.

Dead Island will be released worldwide for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC later this year.

My trigger fingers are absolutely itching to pound some zombie brains.

Visit Dead Island's official website: here.

Aliens Invade The Super Bowl

Are alien invasion films "in" again? You'd certainly think so what with four of the major Super Bowl TV spots featuring the extraterrestrial menaces up to no good. We've got three of the four right here (the fourth film, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, isn't really an October Country kinda film, nor am I a Michael Bay kinda guy, so he can go get his free publicity elsewhere.)

First up, Super 8. Written and directed by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Joy Ride, Fringe) and produced by Steven Spielberg (Jaws, War of the Worlds), Super 8 is said to follow a group of six young children in 1978 Ohio, as they use a Super 8 camera to make their own home movie. One night while filming near a remote stretch of railroad track, the children witness a truck collide with an oncoming train leading to a catastrophic derailment. Amidst the fire and destruction, something inhuman emerges.

Perhaps it's the trailers' music, accompanied by shots of children racing around on bicycles in picturesque small town locals, but the TV spot has a wonderfully nostalgic vibe, recalling the days when Spielberg was working with Amblin Entertainment don't ya think? There is no way I'm missing this one. Super 8 will be in theaters June 10 from Paramount Pictures.



Next up, Cowboys & Aliens. Based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name, Cowboys & Aliens is a science fiction / western film directed by Jon Favreau (Swingers, Iron Man) and produced, yet again, by Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Poltergeist). Starring Daniel Craig (Dream House, The Invasion), Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark, What Lies Beneath), Sam Rockwell (Clownhouse, Joshua, Moon) and genre stalwart Clancy Brown (The Goon, John Dies at the End, The Burrowers), the plot concerns a loner named Jake Lonergan (Craig) in 1873 Arizona, who awakens with no memory of his past and a mysterious shackle around his wrist. He enters the town of Absolution where he learns he is a notorious criminal wanted by many people, including Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Ford), who rules the town with an iron fist. But Absolution soon faces an even greater threat when mysterious forces attack the town from the sky, taking anyone in their path. While Jake's shackle holds the key to defeating them, he must align himself with Dolarhyde and other former enemies to make a stand against this mysterious and more powerful new foe.

I'm on the fence with this one. Good hokey fun, or ridiculous catastrophe, I guess we'll see come July 29th when Universal Studios releases Cowboys & Aliens into theaters. Though I have this nagging idea in the back of my mind that this story was tailored made for the likes of Joe R. Lansdale to gets his wackadoodle fingers into. What a movie that would have been. Oh, if wishes were horses.



The third and final movie, Battle: Los Angeles, is Jonathan Liebesman's (The Killing Room, our review can be read here) sci-fi / horror film inspired by "true events".For years, there have been documented cases of UFO sightings around the world - Buenos Aires, Seoul, France, Germany, China. But in 2011, what were once just sightings will become a terrifying reality when Earth is attacked by unknown forces. As people everywhere watch the world's great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. It's up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they've ever encountered before.

I find there is really never a middle ground with invasion films like these. They are either awesome (War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks) or they are dreadfully awful (Independence Day, Skyline). Director Liebesman filmography isn't a scale by we can anticipate what to expect either, having had a rather spotty career thus far. From the divine (The Killing Room) to the so-so (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, it had it's moments) to the just plain atrocious (Darkness Falls), if Liebesman's output is any indication, we could have anything from the next great, classic invasion film on our hands, to the next multi-million dollar yawn, or the next great Hollywood train wreck. The presence of Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight, Rabbit Hole) lends a bit of class that has me leaning one way though (fingers crossed). At either rate, the studio knows how to cut a wicked theatrical trailer, and now, a TV spot that certainly has my attention. Battle: Los Angeles will be in theaters March 11 from Columbia Pictures.

The Anticipation Is Killing Me

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Its a rare day when you'll find us eagerly awaiting the release of a remake here at The October Country. A rare day indeed. I'll just come out and say it, we're staunchly opposed to the remake trend (or "whore copies" as I like to call them as the term befits their true nature) that has swept Hollywood since the success of Marcus Nispel's 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-imagining (Jesus, seven years of this drek?) and has consumed any chance or likelihood that anything original will go into production by a major studio more than once a year as a result. Yet, here we are. To say that we aren't foaming at the mouth and chewing our lips with over-sized incisors at the prospect of what has been done to the 1973 made for TV movie / obscure cult classic Don't Be Afraid of the Dark in the very capable hands of producer Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, The Devil's Backbone) would be, well, underselling our enthusiasm.

The original '73 movie was an effectively creepy, (mostly) successful attempt in wringing genuine chills from it's strange, small premise. The premise being that of young couple Sally (Kim Darby) and Alex (Jim Hutton) inherriting an old mansion from Sally's deceased grandmother, recently deceased. Upon moving in, Sally discovers a small portion of the fireplace in the basement den has been bricked up and asks the estate's handyman, Mr. Harris (William Demarest), why that is. Mr. Harris informs her that her grandmother had it sealed up after the death of her husband and the bricked up mysetry is better off left alone. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a horror movie if Sally heeded her handyman's advice, so soon after she busies herself with removing some of the bricks herself. Unable to fully free them all, she manages to clear away enough that a small door is revealed to be hidden behind them. Leaving it at that, Sally resumes renovating the house alone, as her lawyer husband (more often than naught) is away at the office striving to make partner at his firm. It isn't long after that Sally's nightly torment begins. The lights routinely go out, beckoning voices can be heard and tiny, hideous, scurrying figures are glimpsed within the darkness. Something very evil has been awakened behind that small door in the fireplace. Something that very much would like to drag Sally off into it's world of enternal darkness.

The original Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, though displaying a genuine, errie atmosphere throughout it's proceedings and more than once shows itself capable of raising the hair on our arms (plus it scores points for it's anti-television downbeat ending), hasn't aged all that well. The problem lies with the film's creatures, simply put, made rather ineffective and silly by some unfortunate, dated makeup SFX that I'm assuming were results of the film's limited TV budget. Though they might have chilled some's blood back in '73 (I imagine young ones were particularly scarred by the film, I would have been) unfortunately, they nearly undo all the nicely crafted suspense and dread built up to the point of their reveal. In retrospect, its a shame that the creatures living behind that small door weren't kept in the shadows entirely, because it is in the darkness where they truly exude their power to unnerve. Though I am not a proponent of that tiring Hollywood excuse that just because something has aged, or not aged well, is reason enough to overhaul a franchise or existing property, the creatures from the remake have already been glimpsed in the teaser trailer and boy, are they an improvemnet. Recalling the demonic visage of the pint sized minions of 1987's The Gate (those things did traumatize me), what we have briefly seen of them promises to be terrifyingly memorable.

Other bright spots feeding my hope that I won't regret spotlighting this film in a few months: The cast is talented (Guy Pierce and Katie Holmes, whom suprisingly doesn't bother me when her face isn't on the cover of a tabloid in relation to her wacko husband). Guillermo del Toro has a distinctive visual style that is always welcome (the influence of which can be found in everything from set design and creature effects) and oftentimes makes for a unique, imaginative world that is always an honor to visit. It appears (judging from the tidbits of material that has been released thus far) as though his stamp of creativity has been left on this film too. What I can only hope for, in regards to the remake, is that the integrity of the original's paced atmosphere has been kept intact, favoring mood over cheap jump scares and big money, special effects overkill. In short, don't let this be another Haunting remake. Please, gods.

Miramax Film's Press Release:

Prodeucers Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage) and Mark Johnson (Chronicles of Narnia) join forces to deliver Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, a tale of hair-raising, spine-chilling horror.

Sally Hurst (Bailee Madison), a lonely, withdrawn child, has just arrived in Rhode Island to live with her father Alex (Guy Pierce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) at the 19th-Century mansion they are restoring. While exploring the sprawling estate, the young girl discovers a hidden basement, undisturbed since the strange disappearance of the mansion's builder a century ago. When Sally unwittingly lets loose a race of ancient, dark-dwelling creatures who conspire to drag her down into the mysterious house's bottomless depths, she must convince Alex and Kim that it's not a fantasy - before the evil lurking in the dark consumes them all.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark's Teaser trailer:

"Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark" Trailer
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The Anticipation Is Killing Me

Vanishing on 7th Street

There is a lot of love for Brad Anderson around these parts. Director of the instant classic and don't-watch-this-if-you-are-afraid-of-the-dark creep-fest Session 9, as well as the criminally underexposed The Machinist, to say that I get a little excited whenever a new project of his is coming down the pipeline would be, well an understatement. For my money, I believe Brad Anderson to be a member of that illustrious cadre of filmmakers currently toiling away at the fringes of the genre that though their work goes largely unseen by mainstream audiences, they are in fact making films that will one day be on those seasonal "100 Best Horror Films of All Time" lists that crop up every year around October. Hell for the most part, I believe Session 9 had already been granted that status by writers other than myself, it's just that most people aren't aware of this. Ever since 2008's Transsiberian, Anderson has been passing the time shooting episodes of various television shows, most notably FOX's critical darling yet viewer starved Fringe (seriously, watch this show and thank me later). I'd been recently wondering if Anderson was up to anything in the feature film arena, when news broke that indeed he had been and was premiering a new horror film, Vanishing On 7th Street, at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. Early buzz has been mixed, with advanced reviews alternating back and forth from negative to positive. There's been comparisons and accusations of ripping off everything from Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, to the 2010 Remedy Entertainment video game Alan Wake (not to mention 1984's cult classic Night Of The Comet of all things), have been fired in it's direction. I'll reserve any judgment on the matter until after I've seen the final cut though. However, I will level this criticism it's way. While both are capable actors, I think that I am going to find Hayden Christensen and John Leguizamo's presence in the film...distracting. Not in a good way either. I think both actor's faces are a little to familiar for me to truly lose myself in their characters but then I guess I shall see. End of minor criticism.

Now, on to the film in question because honestly I am chewing at the bit to set my eyes on this sucker. In fact, I'm already creeped out.

Magnet Releasing's Press Release:

From director Brad Anderson (Session 9, Transsiberian, The Machinist) comes VANISHING ON 7TH STREET, a terrifying, apocalyptic thriller that taps into one of humankind’s most primal anxieties: fear of the dark. An unexplained blackout plunges the city of Detroit into total darkness, and by the time the sun rises, only a few people remain—surrounded by heaps of empty clothing, abandoned cars and lengthening shadows. A small handful of strangers that have survived the night (Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, John Leguizamo and newcomer Jacob Latimore) each find their way to a rundown bar, whose gasoline-powered generator and stockpile of food and drink make it the last refuge in a deserted city. With daylight beginning to disappear completely and whispering shadows surrounding the survivors, they soon discover that the enemy is the darkness itself, and only the few remaining light sources can keep them safe. As time begins to run out for them, darkness closes in and they must face the ultimate terror.

Vanishing On 7th Street's Teaser Trailer:








Vanishing on 7th Street Trailer
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